The Loop

I was awoken not by any single sudden movement or loud sound, but by the slow and quiet and consistent noise that a group of people doing their best to be quiet and speak in hushed tones inevitably makes despite their efforts. Around me, a discussion was taking place, and I heard my name enough times in the haze of near-wakefulness to bring my mind all the way to the surface.

“S’goin’on?” I mumbled.

No one acknowledged my question. I cleared my throat and wet my lips and cracked my eyes and strained to see through the gunk that had accumulated in my lashes. I tried again, moderately more coherent.

“What’s goin’ on? Who’s ‘ere?”

“Ange? You’re awake?”

Adam’s voice brought a visceral, angry reaction to my mind. Then I remembered the events of the prior day and the feeling subsided almost completely. My anger wasn’t my own, I remembered. At least, not entirely. And it should never have been pointed so squarely at him.

And anyway, he’d come when I’d needed him. He’d saved my life.

All else should be forgiven.

I opened my eyes the rest of the way, rubbed the gunk away and sat up straight, surprised to see that I was asleep in the reclining chair in the living room. Someone—probably not me—had draped a blanket over me and slipped a pillow under my head.

The first thing I was really aware of was that my bladder was full. The second was that I was surrounded by Adam and a few of his friends, all of them looking halfway between heroes and vagrants, with their half-worn costumes, wild hair, and bloodshot eyes. There was an embarrassment, being the kid sister of a superhero, waking up surrounded by his super-friends with an urgent need to pee, but I was still too mentally worn out to process it.

I nodded and grunted at each of them in turn as I got up, stretched, and made my way to the bathroom.

“Angie? Are you all right?” Adam asked from the room behind me. At least he’d had the decency not to follow me to the bathroom.

“Where’s mom and dad?” I asked when I came back. “Hi Christine,” I added. “Hi Lincoln. Hi … I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name right now.”

“Shannon,” supplied the Asian girl standing next to Lincoln. “I’m Lincoln’s girlfriend.”

Right, Shannon, I thought. I’d heard of her, but never actually met her.

“So is this your whole team?” I asked Adam.

“It’s … most of us. The others are a bit younger, harder to justify staying out all night on a school night. I’m assuming you’ll be skipping school today?” he asked me.

I honestly couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

“The year just started and it’s a Monday and, you know, we were almost killed yesterday by monsters in a dream that was real, so … Yeah, I might sit today out.”

“Good, that’s good. Mom and dad will understand. They’re upstairs, still sleeping, by the way. You asked before.”

“They’re still sleeping?” To my confused and addled and probably traumatized brain which needed more sleep than it had gotten, I thought it was at least nine or ten in the morning. I finally got around to checking my phone and saw it wasn’t even six a.m. yet.

“They went to bed still pretty upset, but I think they realized everything that’s going on is so far above their ability to even begin to know how to handle that they’re staying out of it. I think they're okay with us finishing what we started. Their only concern is that you're never put in danger like that again.” His face was solemn and there was a deep hurt and regret in his eyes. “And I intend to make that happen, but we still need you.”

“What will happen when we put the missing pieces back in Pitch’s brain?” asked Shannon, saving me from having to respond to Adam in a choked up voice.

Right, I thought. The plan.

Before he could answer, I interrupted, “sorry, but could you guys give me a quick rundown of what you do? I know that you’re all familiar with each other and whatever but I’m having trouble feeling good about going ahead with this when we’re involving more people whose powers I don’t even know.”

There it was again, that deep-seated mistrust of Hypes that, despite my adventure with Adam the day before—and perhaps in part because of it—I couldn’t shake.

“I can absorb energy, store it, change its form, and release it again,” said Christine, a little coolly. “But you already know all that. Adam tells me you watched a bunch of videos online and figured out my identity. I have to say, begrudgingly I might add, that it was pretty good detective work. What I don’t understand is why you incorporated me and my powers into the weird demonic nightmare thing in your mind.”

I wasn't even sure where to start. I hadn't fully processed it myself yet.

Slowly, I began, working my way through what had happened even as the words came to me.

“I think … I don’t really like Hypes,” I said after failing to think of something tactful to say. “I saw those videos in Dallas, on a forum where everyone was calling you awful things, and I kind of went along with it.”

“And we still have to have a discussion about just what the fuck you were doing in Dallas, by the way,” said Lincoln, staring daggers at Christine.

“Not the time, Linc,” said Shannon.

“Please don’t interrupt me,” I said. “I’m not finished.

Only Christine was looking at me by that point. The rest were carefully looking anywhere else. There were hot tears in my eyes that I couldn’t quite justify yet, so I held them back and plowed on.

“And I was … angry at the world, at Adam, at myself because of my friend dying, and somehow I got mad at Hypes for … for just existing, I guess, for taking away the focus from the regular stuff that regular people go through and all the terrible stuff that’s happening in the world and making everyone go all ga-ga over silly powers that people aren’t even using to help things and …”

I took a deep breath, still refusing to let the tears fall, although my eyes were stinging from the effort now. Shannon rubbed my back, tentatively at first, and then more firmly when I didn’t pull away.

I continued, “I guess I saw those videos and I started blaming the girl in them for all of it, for the whole stupid thing. Like somehow she was the root cause of everything that sucked in the world and in my life, too. And then I saw a tattoo on her ankle, and then I watched the videos again, and again, and again, and it all clicked. And then I got even madder because I figured it out, that you were a Hype and probably Adam was, too, and that’s where he’d been spending all his time, when he should have been at home, should have been …” I trailed off finally, amazed that I’d talked for as long as I had.

By the time the tears started falling, I’d forgotten all about them, forgotten that I’d ever intended to hold them in.

Adam was the one to pull me into a tight hug, and there was still a large part of my mind that wanted to deny him, to pull away, to rebuff his efforts. It was going to take a long time before I’d be able to completely close off that part of my mind that had learned to respond to everything Adam did with anger and indignation.

Shannon was still rubbing my back and I felt another hand on my shoulder: Christine’s.

“I’m sorry, Angie. I had no idea about what all you were going through. I’ve considered your brother a friend for ages, and that extends to you, too. I should have been there for you, especially because I know what it’s like to lose someone.” She put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into a side hug as I pulled away from Adam. “But you’re right, we were all too busy with stupid Hype stuff to see what was going on.”

“It’s not anyone else’s fault,” said Adam. “I was here. I did know. I was in her head enough to see with clarity what she was going through, and I still ignored it. Tried to fix it with my power when I should have been fixing it with words, with actions, support.”

“I know we don’t know each other much,” said Shannon. “But if you ever need anyone to talk to. I know … I know what it’s like to lose people too.”

It was strange, having my brother’s friends there to provide this sort of support. I had my own friends for that, and I almost said as much, but I stopped myself. Because it was nice, knowing that not just Adam, but his friends were looking out for me too. And besides, none of my friends would be able to relate to anything I’d been through, not like these people would.

“Thank you guys,” I said. I noticed that, through the whole exchange, Lincoln hadn’t said a word or met my eyes. He’d been friends with Adam longer than anyone else here, and had subsequently known me since before I could remember. And yet, of all of them, he was the only one not to offer any sort of support. I didn’t know the details of the rift that had formed between him and Adam, but I could see that it still had a ways to go before it was fully mended.

Finally, he said, “I’m sorry you went through all that stuff, Ange, I really am, but we have work to do.”

“Right,” I said. “Of course.”

He offered me a small smile and I offered one in return. He wasn’t a bad guy, just … not so good with emotional shit. Even worse than Adam, if that was possible.

On the long couch opposite the chair I’d been sleeping in, a human form appeared suddenly, stretching its arms and yawning loudly.

“Jesus Christ,” I said, jumping back.

“What’d I miss?” asked Oneiros, rising from the couch and looking around at all of us.

“Not much, just talking things through,” said Adam. “Will it work, do you think?”

“Will what work?” I asked.

“While you were sleeping, we came up with most of a plan,” said Adam.

“And we found out where Pitch is being held,” said Linc. “Going in the front door is a no-go, and our …” He looked between me and Adam, as if unsure how much he was allowed to say in my presence. Adam gave him a small nod. “Our friends in New York,” he continued, “aren’t going to help us with this one. They’re not comfortable with breaking into a government installation.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “If Pitch is being held by the government, like in a jail, can’t you just ask to see him?”

“Unfortunately, no. The place is locked down tighter than Fort Knox. You need special clearance to gain access, and given that we lied to the police about how we came to stop him, we're unlikely to get it. They have tons of redundant security measures, many of which are air gapped so my power can’t get to them— ”

“Right,” I said. “You were all supposed to tell me your powers before we got sidetracked. We only got as far as Christine.”

“I touch electronics and can manipulate them. Anything digital. If things are linked to whatever I’m touching, via the internet or any sort of networking, I can access them remotely. That’s how I found out where Pitch was.”

“Okay,” I said, turning to Shannon finally, feeling a bit silly that I was still putting them all on blast about their powers after they’d been so supportive of me, but I wasn’t about to back down on my principles. “What about you?” I asked her.

“I can learn skills, both mental and physical, with extreme ease. I can assimilate muscle memory just by watching other people.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I admitted.

“It means … It means I can learn any sort of dance style, martial art, language, mechanical skill, anything with very little time or effort.”

“That’s awesome,” I said, and I meant it, my inherent mistrust of Hypes notwithstanding. “What sort of stuff can you do?”

“Well, let me see,” she said. “For starters— ”

“Focus,” said Lincoln. “Everyone here is accounted for. You’ve already seen Oneiros’s power in action, obviously. We shouldn't reveal anything about the other members of our team without their permission, so … let’s get back to it, shall we.”

“Right,” said Oneiros. “To answer your question,” he said, looking at Adam. “I think it could work. I’ve never tried it before. Every time I’ve taken anyone into the dream or out of it, including myself, I’ve done it with the assumption that we’d wake up and reappear in the same places in the real world where we fell asleep, but I don’t think that has to be the case. I think you could fall asleep in one place, travel through the Dreamworld, and wake up somewhere else.”

“So say we fell asleep in Texas,” said Christine.

“And we wanted to get to New Jersey,” said Lincoln.

“Then someone could dream up a means of transportation, and we could travel via the Dreamworld from point A to point B, and wake up within the facility where Pitch is being held.” Oneiros had an excited look in his eyes, and I remembered how alive he’d seemed, donning his armor and wielding his crystal sword on the back of his giant red steed. He liked engaging his power in new ways, ways he hadn’t thought of yet.

Maybe they all did. Maybe that came hand-in-hand with the powers.

“I thought you were going to leave, go out West,” I said.

“This is more exciting,” he said. “And besides, I’m partly to blame for this mess. I want to see it through. I owe you that much.”

“Who else will we need?” asked Adam.

“I can’t see Jal— Foresight being useful on this one,” said Shannon. “Plus he has school.”

“What about Harp— I mean Mimic?” asked Adam.

“Can you just say Harper and Jaleel?” I said. “You guys really play fast and loose with your secret identities, by the way.”

That earned me a couple uncomfortable looks form Christine and Lincoln, and a giggle from Shannon.

“We … we keep reminding ourselves and each other that we need to get better about it,” said Adam.

“But somehow, we keep fucking it up,” said Christine.

“We’ll get better,” said Adam. “We’re working on it. Anyway, in my other life, we had it down pat.”

“Your other life?” I asked.

“Right,” he said. “God, there’s a lot to catch you up on.”

“Anyway,” said Lincoln. “Harper—because I guess we’re just completely giving up on protecting our identities—has school, too. I mean, you guys should be going back to university in a few days, too, but I doubt that’ll stop any of you from fucking around doing Hype stuff. But they’re still kids. Have to at least finish high school before they start fucking up their lives like the rest of us.”

“Hear, hear,” said Adam, patting my shoulder. “Don’t think for a second that that doesn’t apply to you, too,” he added to me. “You’re finishing high school, honor roll, and then you’re going to go to college and never get wrapped up in any of this ever again. Promise me.”

“Trust me,” I said. “I want to be done with this crazy stuff as soon as possible.” Even as I said it, though, I knew it wasn’t true. It was all too exciting to really want to give up. But I didn’t have powers, and I never would, so there would never really be a place for me in this world that Adam and his friends found themselves in.

Lincoln got to have his sister inside those walls, but I’d forever be kept out. Adam would insist it was for my own good, and now that I knew as much as I did, maybe he’d share some of his exploits with me, even ask me for advice to humor me, but I’d never be as invovled with the world of Hypes again as I was right now. I wanted to say it didn’t bother me, that I hated the idea of Hypes anyway.

Wanted to, but couldn’t. Not to myself, anyway.

I heard footsteps on the stairs, and everyone turned their heads toward the front hallway. My parents emerged into the living room, looking like they’d slept poorly.

“We don’t approve,” said my father, by way of a morning greeting.

“But we understand,” said my mother. “Just get this thing over with, and get yourselves back in one piece.”

“Adam, you’re an adult and you can do what you want, but don’t ever get your sister involved with this again.” My father aimed for a stern look, but only managed to look impossibly tired. Tired and, I thought for the first time in my life, very, very old.

“I can look after myself,” I said, a little indignant. My parents didn’t even bother responding.

While our focus had been on our parents and theirs on us, the others had slipped out the sliding glass door into the backyard.

“Are we going right away?” I asked.

“Does she really need to go?” my mom asked.

“Mom,” I said. “He can’t do this without me.”

“It’s true,” said Adam. “I really wish I could, but I can’t. But I’ll keep her safe. I promise. And yeah,” he added to me. “No point in putting it off anymore. We just have to pack up our missing costume pieces, and we’ll be off.”

My parents came up and hugged me one at a time.

“We really are sorry,” said my mom, “about Sarah, about all of it. We should have been there for you. If you’re ever going through anything like that again, tell us.”

I shouldn’t have to, I thought. “I will,” I said. “I love you guys.”

“We love you,” said my dad, nearly squeezing the life out of me. “Be safe.”

When I turned back around, Adam held a duffel bag with, I presumed, his very silly costume inside. In the backyard, the others were putting gloves and masks and various other accoutrements in their own bags. Christine had lights running all up and down the torso and limbs of her outfit. Oneiros wore only his regular clothes and carried no bag, but I knew that within the Dreamworld, he could create a far better costume than what the others had come up with.

Adam shook our father’s hand, then gave my mom a quick hug. More passed between them that I couldn’t see or hear. Another irresponsible use of his power? No, I thought, just the language of intuition that passes between parents and their children.

“Let’s go,” he said to me.

“Are we going to sleep in the backyard?” I asked, wondering why we were leaving the house at all.

“Nah,” he said, pointing to where the others were cutting through a wooded lot at the back of our property. “Christos booked a hotel room across town, just being safe by making sure no one sees us leaving together. We're still trying to get this whole Hype thing right, and we're probably being overly cautious, but …”

I shrugged. I did think he was being overly cautious, but I didn't say so. The whole theatricality of the Hype stuff seemed almost laughably over the top to me, but then, when Adam hadn't been cautious, he'd put a piece of a supervillain in my brain. So maybe a bit of caution wasn't a bad thing.

“Who’s Christos?” I asked, finally processing the rest of what he'd said.

“Oneiros’s real name.”

“And we can’t just fall asleep right here?”

“Christos says he’d rather do it on the edge of town. In case something goes wrong.”

“What would go wrong?” I asked.

“He’s going to try his best to keep those things in your head this time, and I’ll help him. But on the off chance they get out again, he wants them isolated to a part of the Dreamworld that’s not connected to any areas he’s already created.”

We walked as we spoke, following the others through the woods to where a rusty old SUV was parked next to a little-used dirt road at the back of our subdivision. I recognized the vehicle as belonging to Christine's parents.

“How does that work?” I asked, getting into the backseat next to Adam.

“When I create a new instance of the Dreamworld,” said Christos, “it doesn’t erase the previous areas. They’re geographically isolated from one another, unless the new one I create is close enough to an old one to link it together.” He tended to gesture a lot when he spoke, and it was sort of funny seeing him wave his arms around in the cramped interior of the vehicle as he strained around to look at me.

I wondered if that was a consequence of his power, too. In the Dreamworld, he could express himself and his ideas with more than just words. It must have been very frustrating being on the outside and feeling so limited.

“I haven’t used any exact measurement tools,” he continued, “but I think when I move through the Dreamworld, an area roughly one mile in radius from my location is automatically generated and filled in by my subconscious. You saw near the edge of that area when you were running from those things. A lot of this area is already criss-crossed with connected areas from my business, and from my experiments this morning. The hotel is far enough away that it should create a brand new area that’s completely disconnected from any existing ones.”

It was a more technical explanation than I needed. But then, I wasn’t sure I would have been satisfied with anything less.

Christine was driving, and as she turned onto the main road that connected to the highway, she pulled her mask up above her eye line.

“Almost forgot I still had this thing on. No wonder it was so hard to see,” she said.

“I think what you had on in Dallas actually looked better,” I said. “Than the mask and the stuff I saw you packing up, I mean”

“You think?” she asked, looking at me in the rearview. “Can’t have this persona connected to that one, though.”

“You absolutely can’t,” said Lincoln, who was sitting in the middle row with Shannon. Adam and I were in the third row, and Christos was in the passenger seat up front. “And further, you have to kill off that Dallas persona. As in, never do that again.”

Christine gave him a glaring look in the mirror, but said nothing. Next to me, I felt Adam tense, as if he wanted to say something, maybe even in defense of Lincoln, but then he relaxed and remained silent. He still wasn't much for speaking his mind.

As we drove, the others talked more about Hype stuff that made little and sometimes no sense at all to me. At first I found it interesting, but after a few minutes I found myself dozing.

“Wake me up when we get there,” I mumbled, and was gone.

——————

When I woke again, we were already inside the hotel room. I’d been expecting a cheap, rundown sort of place, the sort of place where people meet up and pay for a room for a few hours at a time. Instead, this place was upscale, a hotel nicer than anything I was aware we had in McArnold.

“We’re not,” said Adam.

“Not what?” I asked.

“Not in McArnold,” he said. “Sorry for the intrusion, but sometimes my mind wanders and I find thoughts that aren’t my own creeping in. Anyway, we’re on the outskirts of Dallas. I didn’t tell mom and dad we’d be coming this far. Didn’t tell them we’d be going to New Jersey, either. As far as they know, we’re going to return these things from your mind to someone in the county jail.”

“They actually bought that?” I asked.

“Nah, but I don’t think they really wanted to know the exact details of what we have to do. Only that we’d be safe. And we will be.”

“I hope you enjoyed your nap, kid,” said Christos, emerging from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his head, his dreads hidden somewhere within. “I hope you’re ready for another one.”

“Are you ready?” asked Lincoln from the balcony, where he sat looking out over the city.

“I’m as ready as I’m going to get,” I said, not even bothering to try to hide the anxiety from my voice. Adam would have seen through anything, and I imagined anxiety at this stage was normal enough to be expected. If my read of their facial features was right, they were all anxious too.

“Well let’s not waste any more time, then,” said Adam, positioning himself on one side of one of the room’s two queen beds. He patted the space next to him. “Bunk with me, like when we were little kids on vactation?” he asked, looking at me with a smile.

“Of course,” I said, trying and failing to match his smile.

Christine fell onto the other bed, with Lincoln lying on the floor right next to the balcony door.

“What?” he asked. “It's not like we'll actually be sleeping here for long. Comfort isn't really a consideration.”

Shannon threw herself onto the bed next to Christine. “I'd still rather be comfortable for the couple seconds it takes for his power to kick in,” she said

“A fair point,” said Christos, sitting down in the armchair and throwing his legs over the side. “Everyone relax, concentrate on my voice, let yourselves slide downward …

We did.

——————

We awoke in an octagonal brick pavilion in the middle of a lush meadow. There were six hammocks strung around the pavilion, and each of us was in one.

The space immediately around the pavilion was full of tropical trees and flowers, and the scent in the air was of fresh grass and vanilla and cinnamon.

“You've outdone yourself,” said Adam, nodding appreciatively at Oneiros, whose golden armor appeared on his body as he stood up. The others had put their costumes on in the hotel room while I'd slept, and I was now the only person wearing ordinary clothing.

Lincoln pointed at something up above the tops of the trees that encircled us. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked. I followed his finger and gasped.

“Unless someone else can dream up another means of transport,” said Oneiros. “I thought this could be fun.”

The flying saucer he'd imagined made its way over the treetops and hovered slowly down toward us. A long ramp extended from a hatch that appeared in its smooth hull.

“Well, all aboard, I suppose,” Oneiros said, leading the way aboard the craft. “Next stop, New Jersey.”